Dementia itself is not a disease but is caused by lots of different diseases and the word ‘dementia’ is an umbrella term for the symptoms caused by these diseases such as memory loss, confusion, and personality change. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause but other dementias include vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies and frontotemporal dementia.
Dementia is not an inevitable part of getting older and although a majority of people with dementia are over 65, the condition is not a normal part of getting older. The likelihood of developing dementia rises with age, but it's not a given that an older person will develop it. In the United Kingdom, for example, over 40,000 people under the age of 65 have dementia.
Dementia has a bigger impact on women with more and more women living well into their 80s and half a million women in the United Kingdom are now living with dementia and the condition is the leading cause of death in women in the United Kingdom. In addition, women are also more likely to take on unpaid caring roles for other people with dementia and are more than twice as likely as men to provide intensive, 24-hour care for individuals for dementia related conditions.
Dementia is a global issue even though it is a common myth that dementia is only an issue in the western world. The largest increases in dementia expected over the next 20 years are in places like China, India and Sub-Saharan Africa. Dementia is a truly global health issue, affecting 46.8 million people worldwide.
Dementia is more than just memory loss and although most people associate dementia with memory loss, the condition affects people in a wide variety of ways. For example, these might include changes in behavior, confusion, disorientation, delusions, hallucinations, difficulty communicating, problems judging speeds, distances and even cravings for particular foods. Everyone's experience of dementia is different and there are no treatments to stop the diseases that cause dementia and while some treatments can help people to live with their symptoms a little better, there are no treatments that slow or stop diseases like Alzheimer's. Consequently, this means that the diseases will continue to get worse over time unless new treatments can be found quickly.
A person diagnosed with dementia will have contact with a number of health professionals, usually over a long period of time. This will most likely include the family doctor, medical specialists, therapists, community nurses, and social workers all of whom are potential carers for dementia patients. The degenerative nature of dementia means that families and carers will also have a lot of contact with these health professionals and as the disease in an individual progresses these contacts will almost certainly increase.
Usually the family doctor provides on-going health care, sometimes for both the person with dementia and the family and other carers. This means that the relationship between the doctor, the person with dementia and family and carers is critical. The system and devices of the instant invention, it is believed, will reduce the workload of the family doctor assisting a dementia patient and provide extra help for the carers of these patients.
Today, there are more than 200,000 Australians providing informal unpaid assistance to people with dementia and the vast majority of people with dementia living in the community (91%) rely on an informal carer to support them. Most informal carers are either the spouse or adult child of the person with dementia and nearly a quarter of people with dementia living in the community (22%) rely solely on informal care and do not access any formal care services. Additionally, 81% of co-resident informal carers provide more than 40 hours of care per week for dementia patients. Future projections such as Access Economics projects that by 2029 there will be a shortage of 94,266 full-time equivalent (FTE) family carers. It is further estimated the current cost of replacing family carers with paid carers is $5.5 billion per year.
Therefore, the impact of caring can be enormous, for example, caring for a person with dementia can lead to increased rates of depression, stress and anxiety for carers compared to non-carers. For example, in Australian surveys of carers, 31% of respondents reported that caring for the person with dementia had a negative impact on their physical health (3), and 34% reported feeling weary or lacking in energy. Additionally, the stress of caring may result in impaired immunity, high levels of stress hormones, hypertension (high blood pressure) and an increased risk of cardio-vascular disease for carers.
Additionally, the demands of caring for someone with dementia have been shown to put carers at risk of social isolation. A National Carer Survey in the United States found that carers of people with dementia were more likely to report giving up their holidays or hobbies, having less time for family, having more family conflicts and work related problems.
Additionally, caring for dementia related patients can also have significant financial impacts. According to the Dementia in Australia report, 54% of carers of people with dementia (and 45% of primary carers) are of working age while only 56% of these (and 38% of primary carers) were employed at the time of the survey.
The system and devices of the instant invention, known as the MindGo, trademark pending, system and devices, fundamentally use a prompting software developed to remind the user not to forget important tasks, events, time slots or memories that make up the unique life cycle of the user. The software can also be used to store memories, update medical information and link fragmented threads of memory together, of the user, to maintain a level of independence for those living with Alzheimer's and dementia.